


The Storm Under the Skin

by Roo_Bastmoon



Category: Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, First Time, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-12
Updated: 2013-08-12
Packaged: 2017-12-23 06:45:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/923224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Roo_Bastmoon/pseuds/Roo_Bastmoon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Elizabeth dies, Will gets drunk; Jack takes care of him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Storm Under the Skin

**Author's Note:**

> Fic Challenge:
> 
> “Write a story that includes all of these elements...  
> a) Will becoming sick/injured and Jack caring for him  
> b) a storm  
> c) Jack singing his own rendition of "Greensleeves"  
> d) The appearance of someone that either died or was already dead in the movie (can be in a dream, as a ghost, actually coming back from the dead, basically whatever you want).”

A storm approached. Lazy, pregnant, tumbling over the waves, it made the air thick, strangling.

Jack leaned on the stern of the Black Pearl, facing away from the isle of Tortuga, his eyes restlessly raking the sea. He did not want to look back. For the last time he had been here, young Will Turner had been with him. . .

~*~

“Keep a sharp eye,” he had said, turning to converse with Gibbs about getting a crew to recover his ship.

Will did as he was told, and Jack kept a sharp eye of his own—on the boy. Not that it was a hardship. Will’s hair looked softer than silk from the Indies; it framed his face, fell over his eyes; those eyes that held deep pools of simmering brown. Brown like chocolate, like java, like the worn leather of a blacksmith’s apron. You could sharpen your blade on the boy’s cheekbones. And his voice. . . He so reminded Jack of his father, William, what seemed a lifetime ago, when they were both young sailors, unseasoned by betrayal. But William Turner, Jr. was a man all his own.

Now the boy edged away from a fat, frisky whore, and Jack had to smile at his obvious discomfort. Jack’s eyes followed every flustered movement—from the chest that rose and fell with increased breath, to the long fingers that fidgeted with his cuffs. The vest that Will wore clung close to the waist, his shirt parting slightly at the nape of his neck to reveal promises of an exquisite body.

Jack wanted under that shirt and into that body, but one impossible task at a time, he reminded himself. First there was Barbossa to consider, the Pearl to rescue, and then the bothering matter of Ms. Swan. She was a pretty lass; intelligent, too. In truth, Jack had no means of competing with her.

He would have left Will alone to woo his lady fair, but for the insidious whisper in the corners of his mind, the prick of hair on the back of his neck, and that cold, damp shiver of anticipation that told him he was being watched, that Will’s brown eyes were on him every time he looked away.

Jack was sure to look away often.

Which proved to be a mistake.

By the time Jack had convinced Gibbs to toddle off and find them a crew for the Interceptor, Will had managed to get himself into a row with the locals.

It seemed the fat lady had taken a fancy to the young lad, causing her regulars to become jealous and Will to flounder like a fish on land. The boy blustered and backed away from the advancing giantess, affronting her dignity, which, in turn, insulted the master of the house, and before Jack could sip his second cup, he found Will pressed against a wooden pillar, several swords and pistols pointed at his lovely breast.

Jack choked down his drink and trounced over to rescue the kid. “Here now, ye fine gents,” he hiccupped, “what seems to be the bother about, ay?”

“He’s insulted our Tessa, he has!” a drunken customer snarled.

The proprietor of the establishment cocked his pistol at Will’s head. “Said he’s not in the market, or some rot! What’s he bloody well doin’ in my tavern, then, I’d like to know?”

“Fancy boy got lost, it seems,” another man taunted, flicking his knife at Will’s collar.

Will blanched, his hand going for his sword. “Jack—”

“Now, now, me hearties, no frets,” Jack spoke over the boy. “This lad can’t be in the market. He’s a eunuch.”

Confused murmurs bubbled and burped from the bystanders. “A what?” the crowd asked.

“Eunuch,” Jack reiterated. “Means he’s got no—”

“Jack!” Will sputtered.

“But all the same,” Jack hastened, “he’s here in my company.”

“And just who’s company would that be?” the barkeep asked.

“Why, ’ave you not heard of me, then? I’m Captain Jack Sparrow.” He took off his hat and gave a low—if wobbly—bow. “And this here be my. . . eunuch. Savvy?”

The guns and blades were put away at the mention of his name, much to Jack’s delight, and the crowd seemed quickly dispersed. All except for the fat lady, who walked straight up to Jack and slapped him hard across the face.

His ears rang. He locked gazes with Will, seeking something steady and solid to fix his wavering gaze upon.

“Her, too?” the boy asked, his nose wrinkling.

Jack grinned and shrugged. “Any port in a storm, mate.”

“Augh,” Will protested.

“Come lad, I think you’ve had enough excitement for one night. Why don’t you sit down and have a drink with me, and. . . try not to do anything stupid.” Jack swept a hand out to indicate Will’s seat across the table and then sached over to his own chair.

“Very well,” the boy said, “if we can do no more tonight.”

“We can do no more tonight.”

Will nodded, but Jack could see the tension coil in his shoulders, knitting his brow. He must be worried for Elizabeth, and Jack didn’t like the way that thought panged and twisted and skewered his little black heart. He was lonely. But he had enough worries; no need to be acting the forlorn fool in this child’s thrall.

“So tell me, then?” the young man asked, folding his arms across the table expectantly.

“Ay?”

“Tell me why everyone here knows your name? And seems to fear it.”

Jack smiled, pushing his tankard over to the kid and pouring him a drink from his own flask.

He proceeded to get the kid stinking drunk whilst telling him horribly tall tales about his career as a pirate. Jack new he didn’t believe any of it, so he sometimes let the truth slip in. He had to be careful, couldn’t look the kid in the eye too long, or he’d be lost there. Will had an undercurrent all his own, and if Jack didn’t keep his wits about him, he would drown.

Hours passed, until Will’s eyes were deep and glassy with drink.

“Made you the chief of what, exactly?” Will hiccupped, falling slightly forward over his tankard.

“’ere, now, you’ve had enough, I think.” Jack pried the mug from the boy’s clumsy fingers. “Time for bed.”

Will stood and swayed from side to side. “I don’t think I can make it back to the Interceptor, Jack,” he slurred. “You go on without me. Tell Elizabeth. . . Tell ‘lizabeth I’m on my way. . .”

Jack caught the boy just as he dipped to the floor. “Whoa, there. Got you. Not one for holding your liquor, are you?”

Will frowned up at him, reaching blindly for his mug on the table. He raised the tankard high, his body still limp in Jack’s arms, and shouted, “I can hold it just fine, see?”

Jack took the mug and put it back down, shifting Will’s weight so that he could wrap the kid’s arm across his shoulder. “Very good, then. I think that will do for the evening.”

He helped Will towards the bar. “We’ll take two rooms,” he said.

“First you’ll pay for the ale.” The owner eyed Will suspiciously, still incensed over the matter with his whore.

“Any discounts for eunuchs?” Jack gave a half-grin.

The proprietor didn’t so much as blink.

“Right, ale then. Here you are.” He tossed a few coins on the counter. “That should cover the rooms too, say you now?”

The oily man bit at the shillings to ensure their authenticity, then nodded. “Aye, for one night. Just one room left, though.”

Jack stopped, letting Will’s head roll back over his shoulder. “Well how am I supposed to manage that, then? One room?” Will looked around the bar, his eyes zooming to the lovely ladies like two cannonballs towards a merchant vessel.

The owner folded his arms and chuckled. “You think any of them will have you, then?”

Jack glanced at the women, each of them glaring, backs arched, ready to spit like hellcats. “I see your point. One room, then.”

By now Will had lost control of his legs and Jack had to carry him up the stairs to their bedroom. He dumped the kid onto the tiny bed, watching warily as the boy’s hands came up to his mouth.

“You’re not going to spill your guts, are you?”

“Hmm,” Will muttered intelligently, wiping his lips, wriggling around on the bed. “Hot.”

“’ere. Give it over.” Jack slapped the boy’s hands away from his vest and proceeded to help Will disrobe until only the soft billowed shirt hid his supple form from Jack’s view. “Better?”

“Aye,” Will said sleepily.

Jack grinned. “Talking like a pirate and only after one day? Makes me proud to think I’ve been such a bad influence on you already.”

Will mumbled.

“What was that?”

“I said, you are a bad. . . influ. . . influen. . . you’re a scoundrel. Bloody pirate.” The rest of his insults got garbled up by a series of yawns and hiccups.

Jack nodded, laughing. “Ta very much, young master Turner. You have the sweetest pillow talk.”

He removed his effects and stripped down to his shirt as well, climbing into bed with the boy.

“Wha’ you doing?” Will asked, scooting back a bit.

“Any port in a storm.”

Will’s eyes crossed. “Wha’ you saying?”

“Is it not obvious to a lad of your relative intelligence?”

Will frowned and shook his head, going slightly green from the motion.

“Why then, it is my intention to crawl into bed with your young, beautiful, but otherwise temporarily inebriated body, and proceed to thoroughly seduce you until you beg me to take you like a wanton whore. And then I will.”

Three beats of silence passed, then Will doubled up with laughter. It was more of a high-pitched giggle that grated on Jack’s nerves, but what could be done?

Will slapped him on the chest and turned away from him, saying, “You’re crazy, Mr. Sparrow. . . “

“Captain, it’s Captain Sparrow. . . oh, what the hell, you’re not even listening.”

Will had curled up on his side, snoring.

Jack sighed and rolled over on his back, trying to ignore the spice and soap of the boy, buried under the scent of whiskey and rum. He did his best to ignore the way the plump flesh of Will’s backside pressed against his hip, the endearing, chortling sounds the boy made in his sleep. God, he wanted to have all of that boy.

To make matters more maddening, the couple next door had begun their activities for the evening, the creak of the mattress and the dull thumping of the headboard against their shared wall causing Jack to moan in jealousy.

He turned to see if the noise would wake Will, but the boy slept on, oblivious. The couple’s pace increased, joined now by the low moans and whispers creeping through the cracks in the walls. Jack’s cock swelled painfully as he watched Will and listened to the sounds of frantic rutting next door. His hand reached down of his own volition and he rubbed himself through his shirt for breathless moments.

He had to bite his lip to keep from grunting the boy’s name as he crested the wave of completion.

“Damn you, but you have a way of getting under the skin, Will Turner.”

Desperately, his eyes searched in the darkness for a cloth to wipe up the evidence, but finding none, he lifted his fingers to his mouth and licked his spending away. He closed his eyes, imagining it was Will’s seed, then settled comfortably into a deep, sated sleep.

~*~

Jack smiled at the memory and turned towards Tortuga’s wharf, anxious to take one last look before it slipped out of sight.

Long after they had cast off, he stared back at the ripples the rudder sliced through the sea, wondering what fine adventure young Will and the brave Ms. Swan were getting themselves into at this very moment. No doubt, she was the brave Mrs. Turner by now, swollen with one of their babes, and the lad was happy pounding away with his hammer and anvil on nice, dry land.

Thunder rolled; a clap of lightning flicked its finger to the sea.

It brought his attention down to the waves, thick with foam and debris. Dead fish. Green and red algae. Planks. Buckets. William Turner. . .

William Turner?

He gripped the side of the ship, straining to see the body that floated, unconscious, blue, ethereal, upon the waves.

Jack shook himself, but the image refused to vanish. Without thought, he dove into the ocean, ignoring the protests of his crew and his own sanity, furiously swimming towards his friend. But as he approached, he discovered it was not, in fact, William Turner, but his son.

His damnably gorgeous, unforgettable, drowning, son.

Hooking one arm around that waist—too thin, he thought absently—he pulled Will towards the Black Pearl. They hulled him on deck and Jack leaned over, pressing his ear to the man’s chest, anxious to find a heartbeat. It was faint, but there.

“Damn, boy,” Jack muttered, pushing his sopping locks back to get a better view, “I’d have thought you’d brushed with death often enough.”

Will’s body shivered, wracked; Jack thought he looked small then, so very small, like a child, a leaf, a lily beaten with rain. Lightening flashed again, and Jack gathered the boy in his arms as a terrible wind billowed the sails. “Got to get him inside before the storm breaks.” The crew parted from his way as he strode to the door of his cabin.

Wan, thin, dangerously gaunt; Will looked as though he had been starved for months. Jack made quick work of the boy’s clothing, noting the worn patches, tears, bloodstains, on what was otherwise an expensive and well made outfit; he took this all in with a dispassionate, almost surgical, eye. Will coughed, his whole body shuddering as salty seawater trickled from his purple lips, and it became clear enough to Jack.

Will Turner was going to die.

Possibly tonight, if he wasn’t properly looked after.

“Hold on, lad,” he whispered, throwing the useless clothing into drenched heaps on the floor. He patted the boy down with a cloth then tucked him securely into bed. Rifling through his closet, he managed to find two blankets, neither particularly warm or heavy as it was the Caribbean, but it would have to do. He bunched the covers around Will’s body, embalming him in the sheets, and watched as Will struggled to breathe.

“Gibbs!” he bellowed.

The first mate was through the cabin door in an instant. “Aye, Jack?”

“Whiskey. Hot water.” Jack never took his eyes off the boy.

“Aye, sir.” Gibbs peered around Jack to look at Will. “Don’t we know that lad?”

“Aye, that there be young Will Turner. You remember? Our leverage?” Jack took his coat from the back of his chair and piled that on top of the boy as well.

“I’ll be damned, so it is, sir. Funny, he looks so different. And not but two years—”

“Three,” Jack corrected.

Gibbs thought for a moment. “Bugger me, but you’re right. Still, to change so much in three years. . .”

“Yes, it’s rather remarkable, but the whiskey?” Jack pressed, folding his arms.

“Oh, aye. Whiskey. Will ye be wanting anything else, Jack? For the boy?”

Jack rolled his eyes. “The whiskey is for the boy. And boiling water.” Gibbs nodded and walked out the door. “And a hot water bottle, Gibbs!”

“We haven’t got one, sir!”

“Well heat a brick, then.” Jack turned back to Will once Gibbs had exited. He wrung the boy’s knotted hair through his fingers before wiping the excess water on his own shirt. “We’ve got to get you warm. Seems young people have a habit of drowning themselves of late. What the devil were you doing in the middle of the ocean?” He settled in his chair, waiting for Gibbs to return.

That night, a gale of considerable force battered the Pearl, rocked her from side to side like a glass bead in a tin can. The wood creaked; the lanterns swung off their hooks; and through it all Jack Sparrow did not take his captain’s place by the stern, did not issue orders to his crew, didn’t move from his seat beside the bed at all.

When Will’s breath drew ragged, he would ladle whiskey down the young man’s throat. He wiped diamonds of sweat off the boy’s forehead, neck, underarms, determined to win the war against fever. Jack relaxed as some color crept into the boy’s cheeks, but he was still stretched horribly thin, like butter scraped over too much bread.

Will Turner was fading in and out of life.

Jack’s shoulders did not relax until the dawn, when Will’s eyes fluttered open with considerable effort.

“Where. . .?” Will panted.

“Easy now, lad. You’re safe, and among friends.” Jack moved to sit on the side of the bed, wondering if Will had the strength to focus his eyes. He took up the boy’s hand in his own.

“. . . Jack?” Will breathed, straining to sit up.

He pushed the lad back to the bed with one finger. “You’re not strong enough yet. Take your rest.”

Will frowned, closing his eyes, wheezing. “Am I dead?”

Jack smiled. “I don’t know, lad. Steal any Aztec gold lately?”

The boy cracked an eye open, but didn’t smile at the joke.

“Mind telling me what you were doing floating about like kelp on the ocean, young Turner? What happened?” Jack asked. “Are you all right, lad?”

Will said nothing, his eyes still closed.

“Will? You all right? And your lady? Elizabeth? Does Elizabeth need rescuing then?” he pressed.

“Elizabeth is dead,” Will ground out, his expression caving, his whole body sinking inward, shaking, wrenching, twitching as if he’d been struck by lightning. “She’s dead!”

Jack gathered the boy in his arms on pure instinct, unsure what to say as the young man sobbed. He let the boy cry. Will’s hot tears soaked through his shirt, through his skin, into his heart.

~*~

In the days that followed, Will grew considerably stronger. Due in no small part to Jack’s demands that he eat, rest, take in a little fresh air from the port window every day. Will was stubborn; he protested silently; crossed his arms and pressed his lips, turning his stubbly chin deeper into the crease of the pillow, refusing to be dragged back into the world of the living.

Jack could well understand. Many a time in his own life did he know the exhaustion of surviving a loved one—William Turner, Sr. among them—and he sympathized as the boy turned away from the mountainous hurdles of breathing in and out, chewing his food, getting dressed every day.

Jack understood. But he remained insistent. Will Turner was going to live.

Jack was more certain of it with each passing day.

The boy spoke little, and only to Jack. Jack guessed the lad’s first steps outside of the cabin would be tentative, but to his surprise, Will was eager to be on deck. He turned his face to the sunshine with an expression of awe, as if he had not seen the sky before, as if at any moment the daylight could be snatched away forever. Nothing else took the gray mist from Will’s eyes like being out of doors.

It made Jack wonder, but he held his tongue.

He helped Will walk up and down the deck from stern to bow, several times every day, until the lad no longer needed to drape an arm across Jack’s shoulders. But even when he was almost all well, Will leaned on Jack, clung to Jack, anxious.

He would let no other crewmember touch him, not even Gibbs. If they tried, he would scurry away from them as if their fingers were hot pokers. But whenever they went for their stroll, Will would hook his arm over Jack’s shoulders and not let go until they were done. Could it be that Will did not trust his own footing? Or did he just hunger for touch from a friend?

It made Jack twitchy with curiosity, but he asked no questions.

Will also could not sleep in any other bed but Jack’s. After the first night in his own bed below deck, Jack observed the dark circles under Will’s eyes and the near panic-black of the boy’s pupils, and decided that Will could use some more time in the captain’s cabin. Will did not protest when Jack insisted that he sleep beside him again; did not even indicate that he had heard Jack speak of it.

But that night he crawled under the covers and sidled up to Jack, eyes wide, haunted, hands trembling.

It made Jack almost burst with want to ask Will what had happened, but he knew he could not press.

Jack lifted his arm and held the boy snuggly against him, sharing his heat, his comfort, and after a time Will slept.

Some nights he jerked and cried out in his sleep, and Jack was there to soothe his brow, to stroke his back, to murmur tales of mermaids and water sprites and other childhood ditties he remembered from when his mother tried to get him to sleep. One night he even attempted to sing to the boy—Greensleeves was the name of the song—but he had the words all wrong and the key was off. Will didn’t seem to mind, just clung to him in the darkness, ever silent and wary in the darkness, until fatigue took over.

This went on, day after day, for a month, until Will was strong enough to cut his own food, sure enough to walk on his own, able to keep his wits when others accidentally brushed up against him. But then at night the transformation would begin, the slow inset of anxiety, tension; the tortured expression that flickered behind the boy’s eyes; the trembling, the clinging.

“What is it, lad?” Jack whispered into the summer eve, the only sound that of the sea. “What haunts you?”

Will said nothing and Jack sighed, placing a kiss on the boy’s brow. “I suppose you’ll tell me when you’re ready.”

“Elizabeth. . .” Will choked.

Ah, yes. Elizabeth. He had wondered when Will would get to that.

Jack ran two fingers gently up and down the boy’s spine, let the lad curl into him, the movement so familiar by now that he didn’t even think it odd for a lad of Will’s age to behave so. “Aye. What happened to Elizabeth?”

A gurgling grunt bubbled up from Will. “They killed her.”

“Yes. Who, lad?” Jack asked gently, trying hard not to push him too fast.

“Pirates.”

Jack winced.

“We were on our honeymoon. Commodore Norrington gifted us with a pleasure cruise on the Dauntless before we were to head back to England, see a bit of the continent.” Will swallowed. “And they came. . . They came for us.”

Jack’s hand had stopped as he listened to the story; he now resumed his stroking, drawing Will even nearer. “Who came?”

“Pirates,” was all Will would say. The boy’s mouth shut tighter than a clam. But Jack had to know.

“They killed Elizabeth?”

Will nodded against Jack’s chest.

“Immediately?”

A pause and Will shook his head. So. They had kidnapped the couple. That did not bode well. How to ask questions delicately, then?

He ran his fingers through the boy’s hair. “They took you both?”

Will nodded.

“. . . You suffered?”

Will nodded, his breath increasing.

“And. . . she. . . suffered?”

At this Will paused. “I made a trade.”

Jack’s mind whirled. “A trade? You bartered for her?”

Will nodded.

Jack couldn’t think what Will could offer a pirate that he would want more than a chance to have at the young Mrs. Turner. “What did you trade?”

Will’s voice was weak, like watered down tea, all it’s potency leaked away. “Myself.”

The realization stabbed Jack in the gut like a knife. He had to bite his lip to keep from yelling out. Several breaths later, he became aware of Will staring up at him, worried. “Yourself?”

Will turned away abruptly. “You think less of me? Well, think what you like. I wouldn’t let them have her. Not Elizabeth. Not when I could—” He snapped back around to face Jack. “She was my wife!”

Jack turned the lad back around, placing his palm over Will’s breast, cupping his heartbeat, reassuring. “Yes. And you were a good husband to her, lad. I’ve never known anyone as noble as you.” He swallowed, biting back emotion. “They raped you then?”

Will broke. His whole face just broke. He didn’t cry; neither shook nor made a sound. But Jack could see it all the same.

“Yes.”

He moved forward to embrace the boy, but Will pushed him away. “I need not your pity, pirate!”

Tamping down on his frustration, Jack kept his voice even. “You haven’t got it. But you do have my. . . sympathies, Will. For Barbossa didn’t maroon me on that island without first breaking me and making me beg.”

Will looked at him, and for once, Jack did not deflect his gaze.

“I can never tell when you’re telling the truth,” the boy whispered.

“That’s easy. I’ve always told the truth. To you at least.”

Will shifted, drawing the blankets up around his waist self-consciously. “You said you’ve. . . been. . . ?”

“Aye.”

The boy shook his head. “Then how do you stand it? How do you possibly surrender to the fact that a handful of men held you down, beat you, used you. . . tainted you. . . and you still go on? You live? Sometimes I feel as though I will fly apart at the seams. How do you sail past this, Jack?”

Jack brought the boy back down on the bed, wrapping both arms around him, letting him go limp and boneless under the crushing hug. “The memory of your father’s friendship helped me carry on. That and my lust for revenge. Tell me their names.”

Will snorted. “Revenge? That’s pirate talk.”

“And pirate blood is in your veins, don’t forget. You’ll want revenge, soon enough. Tell me their names.”

Sighing, Will scraped his cheek against Jack’s chest. “I don’t know, Jack. It’s not like they handed me their bloody calling cards, you know?”

“The ship they had, was it big? Small? What was on its mast? The sails, were they black? White? You heard none of their names?” Jack knew he was overwhelming the boy, but he was so frustrated at his inability to help Will any other way.

“Doesn’t matter. I think they’re dead.”

“You think they’re dead?”

Will nodded. “After I promised to become. . . their whore. . . they let Norrington take Elizabeth back aboard the Dauntless and sail away. But not far, before they started firing the cannons. Bastards.” Jack tightened his hold. “The Dauntless never had a chance to return fire. And Elizabeth. . . The ship exploded.”

Jack closed his eyes. “Magazine powder. That ship was probably stocked to the gills with firearms and explosives.”

“At least she didn’t suffer. Right?” Will’s voice sounded so terribly young.

“No, lad. It was a good quick death, if needless and stupid. I’m sure she never even had time to think about it.” Silence descended for a bit. Then Jack asked, “So what became of you?”

“They kept me for I don’t know how long. Weeks. Had great fun at my expense. The captain put a collar on me and called me his dog.”

Jack gave a sound of outrage.

“One day they got into a skirmish with another ship; I don’t know, I couldn’t see. They kept me chained up in the brig. The ships traded fire and cannons blew a couple of wholes in the belly; I was knocked overboard. I swam as best I could—they didn’t feed me—”

“Sweet Christ,” Jack swore.

“And I watched it sink. It just went under, quiet. I swam for God knows how long. And then you found me.”

“Aye, lad. Found you so’s I did. And keep you I will, if ye want.”

Will shrugged. “What else is there to do? I can’t go back to Port Royal. I just couldn’t face Governor Swan. Better that he never knows. But all my tools are there.” Will shrugged. “Just as well. Everything I cared about was on the Dauntless. Why should it matter if my tools are in Port Royal? I’m but a breathing corpse; a shell. I’m an oyster without a pearl.”

“You’ve a bit of the poet in you, Will,” Jack joked. “A bad poet at that.”

“I’m serious; I want to die.”

“Elizabeth wouldn’t like to hear you say that.”

Will’s nails dug into Jack’s chest. “Well she can’t hear me say it, can she? She’s dead!”

Jack knew this rage. He knew Will was looking for anything at which to direct his fury. “And who’s fault is that?”

Will jerked up out of his hold. “Damn you! I did the best I could.”

“I’m sure you did,” Jack said calmly.

Will smacked him a good one across the jaw. “Damn you to hell,” he seethed between grit teeth.

“Probably,” Jack murmured, pushing Will off the bed. He landed with a thud that made Jack screw up his face. He didn’t stay down long, however.

The two of them lunged at each other then, Jack taking the brunt of Will’s frustration and anger, landing a few light blows of his own to give the boy something to struggle against. A wave had been coalescing in Will for weeks now; it was time to crack, and Jack would be his beach.

“Go on then, say what you mean to,” he urged.

“You! You think you know everything!” Will hurled articles from the desk at Jack’s head. “You know nothing! You’re just a bloody, stupid, pirate!”

“I can’t argue there.” Jack stepped close, dodging Will’s punches as he grabbed the boy’s hands. “But I do know you, Will Turner.”

Will fought like a cat in a sack, each twist sinking him deeper into Jack’s hold. Jack lowered them to the floor, letting Will rest in his lap, panting. “I know you, Will Turner. I know you did everything in your power to protect what you loved. Your wife. Your honor. Sometimes fate takes those things from us, lad. But that doesn’t mean we have to surrender ourselves.”

Will put his head back on Jack’s shoulder, tense. “Fate didn’t take Elizabeth. Pirates did.”

Jack dared to let one of Will’s hands go long enough to stroke the boy’s hair from his face. “So they did, lad. But they’re gone to Davy Jones’ locker. And you’re here with me. The question remains, what are you going to do with that?”

Will twisted around to face Jack, his expression tired, pale, like wax paper. “What am I going to do?”

Acting purely on instinct, Jack let the pads of his fingers brush over Will’s cheek, trace the blood down the vein in his neck. He leaned forward and lightly covered Will’s lips with his own, pressing the corners of their mouths together, chaste, reassuring, almost fraternal. He broke away quickly, afraid the boy might think he meant to use force as his captors had.

“You’re not scared of me, are you?” he asked.

“You?” Will looked puzzled. “But you’re. . . well, you.”

Jack raised an eyebrow.

“You don’t scare me, Jack. I know I can trust you.” Will looked down, blushing as he realized they were tangled together in Jack’s lap. “But you. . . want me? To stay with you?”

“Oh. I want you, lad.”

Will’s face snapped up. They stared for long moments at each other. “I don’t know if I can. . .”

Jack nodded. “I’ll never ask for more than you can give. You can start tomorrow.”

“What?” Will looked horrified.

He frowned. “Being a mate on the Black Pearl. You can start tomorrow.”

“Oh,” the boy breathed. “Oh, I thought. . . “ He squirmed, rising up off of Jack’s lap.

Jack’s hand snaked out, gripping Will by the forearm and pulling him back down. “You thought right,” he murmured huskily, tilting his head and just brushing his mouth—open, hungry, suave—over Will’s. The room was suddenly charged with electricity.

“Jack.”

“Get into bed with you,” Jack whispered. He helped Will to the bed, pulling down the sheets, watching, amused, as the boy fisted the covers around him. “Go to sleep.”

Will’s frown deepened. “Sleep?”

“Aye, Will,” Jack said, lying flat upon the floor. “Sleep.”

He couldn’t climb into bed with the boy now, not with his cock so painfully hard and jutting out from his body like a bloodthirsty spear. So he curled around himself, willed his erection into submission, and waited for the boy’s breath to even, for the roll of the waves to rock him to sleep, as well.

~*~

The next morning he woke to find himself draped in blankets, Will Turner curled up beside him, nestled in the crook of his arm. He turned his head, breathed in the scent of the young man’s hair, reveled in the puff of warm breath against his neck. He knew that Will was awake.

“You were supposed to be abed.”

Will shrugged. “Can’t sleep alone.”

“Then we should both be abed.”

“Excellent suggestion,” Will said, rising slightly to let Jack push up to his elbows. Then the boy leaned down and kissed him—right there, like that; the rays of dawn coming through the portholes; the boy’s fingers tangling in his hair, pressuring him to tilt his head and deliver the young man better access to his mouth; those lips now full and blushing against his own, licking, invading, gently sweeping, tasting, claiming him. He let Will have his way until he had to break for air.

“Will. . .”

“Jack.” Another kiss, this time deeper, more needy, tinged with a metallic desire, insistent almost.

Jack pushed Will back slightly. “Will. Will. What are you playing at?”

“I’m not playing.” Will dove for his mouth again and it took all his willpower to turn away, lean back, hold the boy at arm’s length.

“Yes, you are. You’re playing with bloody fire. What is it you hope to accomplish?” He knew he sounded harsh, the rasp in his voice born of need and three years of frustration, longing, regret.

“Isn’t this what you meant? When you said you wanted me? You don’t want me?” Will’s face looked like porcelain about to crack.

“Of course I want you!” Jack growled, pressing up to nudge the boy with his stiff evidence. “I’ve wanted you since I’ve clapped eyes on you. I’m just not sure it’s what you really want.”

Will’s lips twisted. “Rest assured, I want you.” He leaned down to take Jack’s mouth again, and Jack cursed his newly developed sense of decency as he pulled away yet again.

“I’m not sure it’s right,” he whispered.

“Why?” Will whispered back. “Is it because they’ve had me? Am I not the conquest you wanted anymore—”

Jack grabbed a fist full of Will’s hair and snapped the boy’s head back. “Say that again and I will run you through.”

Will blinked.

“This isn’t about that. I just figured you’d had enough of being treated like a conquest. I figured you may need time to. . . heal.” Jack pointedly looked down at Will’s lower body, letting his meaning sink in. “Savvy?”

Will relented a bit. “I see.”

“I don’t want to hurt you, lad.”

“I don’t think I could hurt much more, Jack.”

It pained him. It cut his soul like shards of glass tearing into flesh, to see the boy so unraveled, so wrecked. Jack kissed him then; slow, calming. It did not have the desired effect.

Will’s fingers ventured back in his hair, threading through it like needles; his nails dug in to Jack’s shoulder’s, Jack’s back.

He twisted their bodies, putting the boy beneath him, lining their pelvises up at the perfect angle, all of it instinctual, primal, familiar to Jack. He knew the steps to this dance without having to think.

Will’s leg hooked around his waist, drew him closer. He groaned at the newly purchased contact, rubbing languidly against the boy. Will’s cock was hard and pulsing underneath his nightshirt. Jack wanted to run his tongue along it, make the boy scream in pleasure instead of pain. He whimpered at the thought of Will in the throws of honest passion. His, all his.

“Yes yours, Jack.” Will murmured around his mouth, slipped the brave admonition in between their frantic kisses. The boy sucked at his neck, licked along his jaw-line, arched up, all if it designed to make Jack mad, to make Jack buck and snap and drive them both to completion.

He wrenched up on his hands and knees. “Not like this, Will. I will not do this.” He stood up, shaking, running a hand through his hair, his cock screaming at the loss of Will’s warm, pliant body.

The young man sat up, dazed. “But why not?”

He gripped the bedpost, panting. “Because. I want to take you on the bed. Slowly. Like a real lover.”

Will’s face softened, brightened, sparked.

He reached out a hand and helped the lad up, held him close, laved at his mouth until they were both dizzy and giddy with it. Then he playfully slapped the boy’s ass. “Now on the bed with ye.”

Will smiled tremulously, climbing in the bed, lying face down. Jack’s mouth watered at the sight of those lovely buttocks raised ever so slightly in the air, the press of their muscle and flesh rounding out the bottom of Will’s shirt. He swallowed.

Joining Will, he ran a hand down the boy’s back, felt the shiver it produced. “Turn over lad.”

“But. . .?”

Jack turn him, pushed him flat against the mattress, flushing him out with his weight. “Want to see you.”

He suckled the boy’s neck, bit down at precisely the right spots, flicking and swirling and dragging his tongue along the boy’s salty skin, heading south, always heading south, down past dusky nipples, protruding ribs, down to the rim of the boy’s waist.

Slowly he swept Will’s shirt up, revealing the skin of the boy’s thighs, cock, abdomen, inch by inch. He looked at the exquisite manhood, purple, pulsing, straining towards him. No want for size, he thought. The spitting image of William Turner, indeed.

Licking his lips, he descended on the boy, engulfing him, smirking around the thick cock as Will arched up and cried out. He suckled, he licked, he traced. Without mercy he tortured the boy’s flesh until Will gripped the headboard, groaning and writhing and completely unaware of himself.

Then Jack climbed atop him, his mouth hovering above the boy’s, his cock thrusting deliciously against Will’s. He mimicked the act of sex, knowing Will was not prepared to take his length yet. Nor would he be for many days, yet. But just to have Will willingly in his bed was enough to satisfy him. He concentrated instead on pleasing his lover.

Will threw his head back, breath coming in harsh jabs from his mouth, coursing over Jack’s chin, neck. The boy kissed him without cessation; seemed to thrive and feed off of Jack’s mouth. Jack indulged him.

He humped the boy in earnest now, jutting and jabbing and thrusting his desire against Will’s own. The boy wrapped his legs around Jack’s waist, tangled his fingers in Jack’s hair and began to softly moan for more in Jack’s ear.

It was his undoing.

He mashed their hips together, biting down possessively on Will’s throat, shoulder. Will bucked and squirmed, desperate, as Jack kissed him and flung them both over the edge. Jack watched those cinnamon-brown eyes widen, glaze, close, as release crashed over them.

Then he collapsed atop the lad, out of breath, his bones melting into exhaustion. Will still clung to him, their legs still tangled together, but Jack was too sated to move. “You all right, lad?”

“Aye, Jack,” Will whispered softly, content.

Jack closed his eyes.  
~*~

“Be sorry to be leavin’ ya, Jack. But this rheumatism is something fierce, and it’s time an old man like me settled down.” Gibbs tipped his hat.

“I’m sorry to see you go, mate. Fair winds and warm sands, my friend.” Jack waved as his first mate walked down the pier and onto Tortuga’s shore.

“He’ll be gone forever, then?” Will said, close at Jack’s side.

Jack lifted a hand against the afternoon sun, his eyes watching as Gibbs wandered out of sight. “It seems so, but you can’t keep a pirate from the sea for long. Those wharf rats always find a way back.” He hooked an arm around the boy’s waist, planting a kiss on that chiseled cheek, happy to see that a month of proper rest, nutrition, and care restored Will to a healthy weight.

“Well, I wouldn’t know about that, Captain Sparrow,” Will said, blushing at the intimate gesture in front of the crew. “I’m just a blacksmith.”

“Bah, you’re a pirate to the core.” Jack held his breath, hoping it would not remind the lad of his kidnap and torture at the hands of those pirates but two months ago.

But Will merely smiled, ducking his head.

“Besides,” Jack said, dispelling the tension, “I’ve no call for a blacksmith at the moment.” At Will’s fallen expression he straightened up, kissed the boy again. “But, I do seem to be in the market for a first mate? What say you? Aye, a vast?”

Will screwed up his eyes in embarrassment. “God, what a horrible pirate I would make.”

“You’d learn, Will Turner. You’re an intelligent lad. And there’s always room for you, savvy? In fact, there’s just no getting rid of you, I think.”

“I have a way of getting under the skin, right?” Will smiled softly.

Jack frowned, the memory of that night in Tortuga three years ago galloping afresh in his mind. He had said that very thing when. . . And there stood Will Turner, smirking, blushing to the roots of his hair, clearly aware of all that had passed that night.

“You scurvy. . .mangy. . . little. . . .”

The boy threw his head back and laughed, winking conspiratorially. He stepped up to Jack, touching their foreheads, whispering over the light wind, “Yours, Jack. Just call me yours.”

~*~

END


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